


Life and Other Occupational Hazards

by Pen37



Series: To Say Nothing Of The Dragon [2]
Category: Brave - Fandom, How to Train Your Dragon - Fandom
Genre: Gen, Hiccup didn’t sign on for these shenanigans, Hiccup just wants a quiet night in his workshop, Merida could be the ancestor of Sam and Dean Winchester, Merida dosen’t explain anything, Merida explains things badly, Merida likes bows not boys, banter and snark, gratutious blacksmithing, gratutious folklore, hiccup and Merida friendship, if she was actually interested in getting married, merida is so done with this night, which she’s not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-15
Updated: 2018-11-15
Packaged: 2019-08-24 04:11:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16632674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pen37/pseuds/Pen37
Summary: Oh, hello princess.”  He squinted at her curiously.  “How did you get here?”“On a magical flying horse.” Merida brushed aside his curiosity.  She was on a tight schedule tonight.  “Do you know where I can find Master Gobber?  I need a blacksmith’s help.”





	Life and Other Occupational Hazards

**Author's Note:**

> To Say Nothing Of The Dragon was supposed to be a one shot. But it turns out that Hiccup and Merida have more to say to me.

“Gobber! Gobber, are ye here?” Merida poked her head into the dark smithy. She bit her lip and prayed that Brighid, spirit of the smithy would smile on her even in a land of foreign gods.

A head appeared from behind a curtained off area near the back of the workshop, followed by an arm holding a candle. By it’s light, Merida recognized Young Haddock.

“Oh, hello princess.” He squinted at her curiously. “How did you get here?”

“On a magical flying horse.” Merida brushed aside his curiosity. She was on a tight schedule tonight. “Do you know where I can find Master Gobber? I need a blacksmith’s help.”

“So you flew to Berk on a magical horse? Don’t they have blacksmiths in Scotland?”

Merida made a face. “Not any that aren’t so bloody superstitious.”

Young Haddock sighed, then emerged from behind the curtained area. He used his candle to light several more tapers around the workshop. Then he stoked the fire in the kiln. “Gobber’s already taken himself off to bed. But I can help.”

Merida then remembered that Young Haddock had been Gobber’s apprentice. She supposed if anyone could help, it would be a dragon-riding, blacksmithing Viking lad.

With more light in the shop, Young Haddock squinted at her as if seeing her for the first time. “Your dress is inside out. Were you in a hurry?”

“Just a precaution.” Merida tossed over her shoulder as she turned back to her mount. “Along with the coin in me shoe and me cold iron knife.”

With a relieved sigh and a mental thanks to whichever spirit happened to be blessing her at the moment, she untied the burden she’d lashed to her mount’s back - a broken wagon wheel. As she waddled back to the smithy under the weight, the Viking lad came to the door. He stared at her mount with eyes wide in astonishment.

“That’s . . . That’s your magical flying horse?”

Merida paused, and looked back at it. She supposed she should have mentioned that it had no head. “Aye?”

Young Haddock’s eyebrows looked like they might climb his forehead and nest in his hair. “How does it see where it’s going?”

Merida shrugged as she pushed past him into the smithy. “Magic? I’m just borrowing him from his owner. But that’s exactly why I’m here, and not back in Scotland.”

She heaved the wheel onto a worktable.

“Besides,” she continued as she rubbed her sore back. “The coachman was headless, too.”

“I get the feeling there is never a simple explanation when you’re involved, Princess.” Young Haddock turned away from the doorway reluctantly, shooting a concerned look back at the headless horse.

“Merida, if you please, Master Haddock.”

“Hiccup.” He corrected. “Just Hiccup.”

She looked around the smithy, wondering where his great black beastie was. Just then the dragon poked his head out from behind the curtain. Merida remembered that area being Young Haddock’s workshop.

“Hello beastie.” She nodded it.

“Toothless,” Hiccup corrected her again.

“Toothless,” she said.

The beastie rested it’s head on it’s front feet, watching her curiously.

Hiccup bent to examine the wagon wheel, then his head snapped back up. “This is bone!”

“Aye.” Merida shut her eyes and sighed. “I take it ye folk don’t have Dullahans up this way.”

“Well we do now!” Hiccup waved his hands in the air wildly. “What’s a Dullahan?”

“One o’ the unseelie court.”

“Viking here. I don’t speak your particular dialect of gargling.”

“Ye ken what a fae is, yes?”

“Yes.” Hiccup nodded. “It’s a spirit, isn’t it?”

“There are two types of the fae; the seelie, which are . . . lighter. I guess. And then there is the unseelie. You must have care around both types. But if you cross a seelie, they’re more like to just sour your cows milk or back up your privy or unpin your pladdie brooch when ye least expect it.”

“Sounds like they might get blamed for a lot of things that just go wrong.” Hiccup crossed his arms.

“Aye.” Merida nodded. “A fair bit. But they can be nice, too. Maudie, our auld nurse had a brownie come to live in the topmost cupboard of the castle’s kitchens. When me brothers misbehaved, it would warn her away from the worst of their traps. She used to leave a wee thimbleful of cream out for it.”

“And the unseelie have no heads,” Hiccup surmised. “And coaches made of bone.”

“Well, just the Dullahan. But others of his ilk aren’t so bonnie as he.”

Hiccup raked his hands through his messy hair. “Why are you helping it? Him? It?”

Merida massaged her temples. It was shaping into a long night. “We all have our roles in this world, even a creature o’ the dark. The Dullahan guides your spirit to the afterlife, once you die. He can’t do that with a broken coach. And no one needs to see the spirit of their auldjin sittin’ across the table from them over breakfast porridge.

“I helped him fix it once, but I’m no wainwright. The mend didn’t take.”

“I think I’d prefer to meet a Valkyrie than a headless coachman in a bone coach.”

“What’s a Valkyrie?” Merida asked.

“Odin’s maiden daughters. They guide the spirits of dead warriors to Valhalla.”

“O’ course ye would.” Merida rolled her eyes.

With a sigh, Hiccup went back to examining the wheel.

“The tire is missing.” He ran his finger along the edge where it was cracked to show her. “If it were here, it would help ease the stress on the wheel components.”

“There was one,” Merida said. It was made of . . . leather. At least I hope it was leather.”

“Yeah, considering this wheel is made of bone, it’s best not to speculate.” Hiccup said. “Why not use iron?”

“Fairies can’t abide cold iron,” Merida said.

“What about gronckle iron?” Hiccup asked.

Merida shrugged. “Never heard o’ it.”

Hiccup pulled a lump of metal from the counter. “See how your magical flying most-of-a-horse likes this.”

Merida took the lump out to the headless-horse. She held it up to the beast to no reaction, then reported the result back to Hiccup.

“I thought as much,” Hiccup nodded. “There’s not much iron in gronckle iron.”

“What in it, then?” Merida held it up to the light for inspection.

“Whatever minerals a gronckle happens to chew on. The result is lighter, stronger and doesn’t rust like iron.” He picked up a sword for her to see, balancing the blade on two fingers to show the lightness. “I made this from gronckle iron.”

Merida made grabby hands, until Hiccup passed the weapon to her. She took a couple of test swings, then extended into a lunge. “A weapon like this is almost enough to make me want to give up me bow.” She passed the sword back to Hiccup.

“Thanks.” The braw bonnie lad blushed an adorable shade of red, scratching the back of his neck with his free right hand.

“These gronkles, they eat rocks like a bird? Do they help in digestion?” Merida thought of the hawks she’d hunted with at home.

“That’s my working theory,” Hiccup shrugged. “I’m going to shape the tire, then attach it still hot. The metal shrinks to size when it cools. You can wait over there, or tie on an apron and help.”

Merida smirked, tying back her hair and reaching for a leather apron and gloves.

As Hiccup used the bellows to further stoke the fire and put a gronckle iron blank into the coals, he glanced back at her. “So where are your three buddies?”

“Me brothers are home in DunBroch.”

“I meant the three guys who used to follow you everywhere,” Hiccup said.

“Oh, the Young Lords.”Merida nodded. “They’ve gone back to their own lands. Me, Mum and Da decided that the kingdom needed a ruler who wouldn’t be gadding about the country with fairies and brownies and elves. So Harris will take the throne someday. Hubert and Hamish will be part of his ruling counsel, o’ course, and the Young Lords. I suppose I’ll sit in when I’m there.“

Merida realized she was getting off track. “At any rate, The Young Lords lost interest in more than me friendship after that.”

Well, most of them. Young MacGuffin hung around for a bit. But eventually even he grew tired of the constant adventuring.

“I think we all realized that I was never going to be able to settle down.”

Hiccup looked at her in confusion. “Were you supposed to settle down at some point? I sort of thought this adventuring thing was what you did.”

“That was the assumption everyone made,” Merida clasped her gloved hands behind her back. “Things are better this way. I would have made a bad wife.”

“Not everyone is looking for a hauswif,” Hiccup said. “If your mom is the standard, every woman in Berk would fall short.”

“If me mum is the standard, every woman In the world falls short.” Merida laughed.

“I’ve never met her. But Astrid says she’s formidable.” Hiccup took up the white-hot metal with a set of tongs and set to beating it into shape with a hammer.

“‘At’s the pot calling the kettle black.” Merida chortled. Astrid Hofferson was married to hiccup’s cousin Snotlout. When Merida was last in Berk, investigating Hiccup’s “kidnapping,” she’d gotten the impression that the couple were similar to her own parents.

Snotlout was probably once rough around the edges, but Astrid had obviously knocked all those rough edges off long before Merida ever met them.

“When Astrid was in DunBroch negotiating trade with Mum, I thought Mum might have a fit of apoplexy. Me whole life it’s been ‘sit up, Merida! Smile! A Princess dinnae put her weapons on the table, or stuff her gob!” Merida puffed out her chest and affected her mother’s manner of speaking.

“An’ here’s future Chieftaness Hoefferson with her great bloody axe, wolfin’ down the haggis.” She doubled over, holding her sides with laughter.

Hiccup laughed along with Merida. “I’d have given my leg to see that. And I only have one left.”

Merida passed him another rod of gronckle ore. “What about you?”

“Am I looking for a hauswif?” Hiccup raised an eyebrow.

Merida was glad that the forge was so warm. That would explain the hot blush spreading across her cheeks.

“No you numpity, I meant, are you going to take over for your Da as Chief? Since you’re not dead and all?”

Hiccup shook his head. “If it was just Snotlout, I’d step in. But Dad, Astrid and I all agree that she’s the better choice.”

“What are you going to do then?” Merida asked.

“Fix magic carriage wheels for Feral Scottish Princesses?” Hiccup said.

“Can’t see that keeping you too busy.”

“I’m considering starting a school to teach others how to train dragons,” Hiccup said. “When I came back, I brought several clutches with me. Some of the others in the village are interested in learning how to ride.”

Merida’s expression turned thoughtful. “How fast do they fly?”

“I could get to Scotland on Toothless in a few hours,” Hiccup said.

“That’s better than a week by boat.” Merida said quietly. “In good weather.”

Hiccup looked smug. “Sounds like someone is interested in dragon riding.” He said in sing-song.

“I’ll have to fix the Dullahan’s coach. Then arrange a boat to bring me back here.” Merida rested her chin in her hand, thoughtfully.

Hiccup finished twisting the gronckle iron onto the wheel and shoved the entire thing into a barrel of water. It made a sizzling sound. Steam rose dramatically through the forge. “Forget the boat. Toothless and I can follow and bring you back.”

“Alright,” Merida nodded. “I’ll have to explain to Mum. That’ll go over well.”

“A proper princess does not run away on the back of a dragon with a Viking?”

“No, but I’m coming back with ye’ anyway.” Merida drew herself up to her full height. “I think we’ve established that I’m nae proper Princess.”

It would have been a great, dramatic moment. But then Hiccup pointed to his own chin. “You’ve got some soot on your . . . right there.”

Merida looked down at the soot stained gloves she was wearing. She’d managed to stain not just her face, but her shift and kyrtle as well. “Och, Mor’du’s manky backside!” She exclaimed, wiping her chin on her sleeve.

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact: Washington Irving, the writer of Sleepy Hollow had parents from Scotland. He probably drew on the Dullahan lore for his headless horseman character. 
> 
> If you want a good, scary Halloween character, the Dullahan ticks all the boxes. You should look it up sometime. Just maybe not while you’re eating.
> 
> According to Pixar, DunBroch is based on Glencoe, Scotland. And Cressida Cowell said that Berk was based on an island she spent her summers on in the Hebrides. According to Google Maps, you can cover that distance by a combination of bus, train and ferry in 9 hours. Flying by dragon would probably only take an hour or two. 
> 
> I have no idea how long the trip would actually take by medieval Scottish Birlinn boat. I’m going to assume it takes the week I said it would take due to rough seas.


End file.
